Assignment 4

From: Boss Partner

To: Paralegal

Date: 02/28/YR01

Re: Smith v. Johnson

Well, those settlement negotiations did not go very well, did they? That was nasty. We are really earning our money on this representation. I think we can assume that we will have to answer the Complaint unless we can get it dismissed.

Just in case we can not get the case dismissed on jurisdictional grounds, we may still be able to get the various tort counts against Jane dismissed. If the case ever goes to a jury. I will not count on Jane and her business idea as coming across as very sympathetic. Since I will be drafting the part of the motion to dismiss the Complaint against Jane based on lack of jurisdiction, I would like you to take a stab at drafting the part of the memorandum in support of a motion to dismiss all of the tort causes of action.

By way of review, Douglas Smith has alleged the following tort causes of action against Jane:

Defamation - based on Jane's allowing Brenda James' review of him to reside on her website.

Invasion of privacy - based on Jane's allowing Douglas' name, address, and vehicle information to be published on her website.

Invasion of privacy - based on Jane's allowing the video of the Smith's profanity laced rant against Brenda to remain posted on Jane's website.

Misappropriation of name and likeness -based on Jane allowing a video of Douglas to remain on her commercial site, thereby making money off his name and likeness.

Intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Based on all your prior research, you should have a really good feeling for the law involved and how it applied to Jane's potential liability.

The discussion in your earlier memo about that federal statute was really helpful. However, make sure not to base the entire motion to dismiss on that statute. Although you may want to draft a separate section arguing that all of the tort causes of action should be dismissed based on the statute, we nevertheless want to also argue separately that those causes of action should be dismissed on traditional California state law grounds. I'll review and edit it of course, but when writing it, pretend you're writing to the court and that it would be submitted with no review.

Thanks for your assistance!

B. Partner